People are born in one place. Traditionally humans move around more than other animals, but in modernity the global mobility of persons and the factors of production increasingly disrupts the sense of place that is an intrinsic part of the human experience of being on earth. Industrial development and fossil fuelled mobility negatively impact the sense of place and help to foster a culture of placelessness where buildings, fields and houses increasingly display a monotonous aesthetic. At the same time ecological habitats, and diverse communities of species are degraded. Romantic resistance to the industrial evisceration of place and ecological diversity involved the setting aside of scenic or sublime landscapes as wilderness areas or parks. However the implication of this project is that human dwelling and ecological sustainability are intrinsically at odds. In this collection of essays Michael Northcott argues that the sense of the sacred which emanates from local communities of faith sustained a 'parochial ecology' which, over the centuries, shaped communities that were more socially just and ecologically sustainable than the kinds of exchange relationships and settlement patterns fostered by a global and place-blind economy. Hence Christian communities in medieval Europe fostered the distributed use and intergenerational care of common resources, such as alpine meadows, forests or river catchments. But contemporary political economists neglect the role of boundaried places, and spatial limits, in the welfare of human and ecological communities. Northcott argues that place-based forms of community, dwelling and exchange - such as a local food economy - more closely resemble evolved commons governance arrangements, and facilitate the revival of a sense of neighbourhood, and of reconnection between persons and the ecological places in which they dwell.

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"Draws upon previously neglected primary sources to offer a ground-breaking analysis of the intertwined political, racial, and religious dynamics at work in the institutional merging of three American Methodist denominations in 1939. Davis boldly examines the conflicted ethics behind a dominant American religious culture's justification and preservation of racial segregation in the reformulation of its post-slavery institutional presence in American society. His work provides a much-needed, critical discussion of the racial issues that pervaded American religion and culture in the early twentieth century.a
--Wendy J. Deichmann Edwards, Academic Dean and Associate Professor of History and Theology, United Theological Seminary, Dayton Ohio

aA discerning, sober, and troubling probing of the preoccupation within the Methodist Church with Christian nationalism, civilization as defined by white Anglo-Saxon manhood, and race, race consciousness and athe problem of the Negroa that was foundational to and constitutive of a reunited Methodism. A must read for students of early 20th century America.a
--Russell E. Richey, Emory University

In the early part of the twentieth century, Methodists were seen by many Americans as the most powerful Christian group in the country. Ulysses S. Grant is rumored to have said that during his presidency there were three major political parties in the U.S., if you counted the Methodists.

The Methodist Unification focuses on the efforts among the Southern and Northern Methodist churches to create a unified national Methodist church, and how their plan for unification came to institutionalizeracism and segregation in unprecedented ways. How did these Methodists conceive of what they had just formed as auniteda when members in the church body were racially divided?

Moving the history of racial segregation among Christians beyond a simplistic narrative of racism, Morris L. Davis shows that Methodists in the early twentieth century -- including high-profile African American clergy -- were very much against racial equality, believing that mixing the races would lead to interracial marriages and threaten the social order of American society.

The Methodist Unification illuminates the religious culture of Methodism, Methodists' self-identification as the primary carriers of "American Christian Civilization," and their influence on the crystallization of whiteness during the Jim Crow Era as a legal category and cultural symbol.

Various social, political, economic and cultural commentators are presently arguing that human history is reaching a decisive stage in its development, a stage marked by increased interconnection between peoples, the compression of space and time, a sharing of ideas at unprecedented levels, global trade and finance, and so on. The shorthand word used to encompass these phenomena is "globalization." Some embrace it, others reject it, while still others dispute its existence. But with the abundance of literature and debate that it generates, the topic cannot be ignored. From its inception in the missionary mandate of Jesus (Matthew 28), Christianity has had a global dimension to its mission. Christianity is not a spectator to globalization but one of its agents, one of the forces at work which have extended interconnection between peoples, shared ideas and promoted social, political and cultural links.
The purpose of the present work is not to provide a complete response to the question of the mission of the church in a globalizing world, but to establish a framework within which answers may be sought. Grounded in the writings of Bernard Lonergan and Robert Doran, it develops a theology of history and addresses the churches response to the impact of globalization on vital, social, cultural, personal and religious values. The project brings together the perspectives of Catholicism and Pentecostalism, the former providing a depth of wisdom and tradition, the latter drawing on the insight of a newly emerging movement that has taken root in every continent with remarkable energy and enthusiasm.

The voices of second-generation Korean Americans echo throughout the pages of this book, which is a sensitive exploration of their struggles with minority, marginality, cultural ambiguity, and negative perceptions. Born in the United States, they are still viewed as foreigners because of their Korean appearance. Raised in American society, they are still tied to the cultural expectations of their Korean immigrant parents. While straddling two cultures, these individuals search for understanding and attempt to rewrite their identity in a new way. Through autobiographical reconstruction and identity transformation, they form a unique identity of their own-a Korean American identity. This book follows a group of second-generation Korean American Christians in the English-speaking ministry of a large suburban Korean church. It examines their conflicts with the conservative Korean-speaking ministry ruling the church and their quest to achieve independence and ultimately become a multicultural church.

Although our planet faces numerous ecological crises, including climate change, many Christians continue to view their faith as primarily a "spiritual" matter that has little relationship to the world in which we live. But Steven Bouma-Prediger contends that protecting and restoring our planet is part and parcel of what it means to be a Christian. Making his case from Scripture, theology, and ethics and including insights from the global church, Bouma-Prediger explains why Christians must acknowledge their identity as earthkeepers and therefore embrace their calling to serve and protect their home planet and fellow creatures. To help readers put an "earthkeeping faith" into practice, he also suggests numerous practical steps that concerned believers can take to care for the planet. Bouma-Prediger unfolds a biblical vision of earthkeeping and challenges Christians to view care for the earth as an integral part of Christian discipleship.

This timely study fulfils the need for an ethical examination of global finance which is both theologically and economically literate. Cowley tackles the assumption that economic factors are pivotal in driving globalization forward. She argues that economic factors are themselves driven: they are the working out of underlying phenomena. Of these, the most pervasive and influential is money, not only in the sense of the finance sector, but also money itself, the symbolic properties that it possesses. The Value of Money looks at how these properties shape the nature of the finance sector, its activities, and the relationships within it and with the rest of the economy. It also examines the effect of money on our understanding of freedom, of the market itself and of the ethical, issues arising from this, for individuals, the sector and for society as a whole.

St Augustine of Hippo was the earliest thinker to develop a distinctively Christian political and social philosophy. He does so mainly from the perspective of Platonism and Stoicism; but by introducing the biblical and Pauline conceptions of sin, grace and predestination he radically transforms the 'classical' understanding of the political. Humanity is not perfectible through participation in the life of a moral community; indeed, there are no moral communities on earth. Humankind is fallen; we are slaves of self-love and the destructive impulses generated by it. The State is no longer the matrix within which human beings can achieve ethical goods through co-operation with other rational and moral beings. Augustine's response to classical political assumptions and claims therefore transcends 'normal' radicalism. His project is not that of drawing attention to weaknesses and inadequacies in our political arrangements with a view to recommending their abolition or improvement. Nor does he adopt the classical practice of delineating an ideal State. To his mind, all States are imperfect: they are the mechanisms whereby an imperfect world is regulated. They can provide justice and peace of a kind, but even the best earthly versions of justice and peace are not true justice and peace. It is precisely the impossibility of true justice on earth that makes the State necessary. Robert Dyson's new book describes and analyses this 'transformation' in detail and shows Augustine's enormous influence upon the development of political thought down to the thirteenth century.